mom’s green jello salad

posted on December 12, 2010 by Merry-Jennifer

I’m going to share with you a dirty little family secret. It’s the recipe that my family can’t resist, the one that’s only served at Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you are into eating only unprocessed and organic foods, you should look away now. Seriously, look away.

Are you ready? This is the secret:

My mom’s Green Jello Salad. It’s not really a salad, as you can plainly see from the photo, but for some reason, these concoctions made with Jello are called Jello salad. When this dish is on the table during our holiday meal, there are rarely leftovers. The kids love it, and they usually fight over who gets the maraschino cherries. The adults love it, even though guests are commonly puzzled by what’s exactly in it.

The ingredients are very simple. Lime-flavored gelatin, cottage cheese, Cool Whip, pineapple, and nuts. And don’t forget the maraschino cherries for decoration, or you’ll have some angry children on your hands.

I wish I could say that this dish is so much better when I whip the whipped cream by hand using heavy cream or if I avoid the artificially-sweet crimson cherries on top, but it’s really not. This is a side dish – or dessert – that must be made with all of the processed ingredients, exactly as written. I have years and years of taste memories associated with Mom’s Green Jello Salad, and those aren’t found in any altered version of this recipe.

So, while the other dishes on the table at Christmas will be made from scratch using the best fruits and vegetables I can find in my organic market, there will be this one completely processed, as-opposite-of-organic-as-you-can-get dish on my menu.

Directions:

Add 1 cup boiling water to gelatin in a bowl; stir 2 minutes or until completely dissolved. Stir in the cold pineapple juice. Refrigerate 2 hours, or until half-set.

Remove from refrigerator and add in the Cool Whip, cottage cheese, chopped nuts, and crushed pineapple. Mix until very well incorporated. Garnish with maraschino cherries and chill for at least one hour before serving.

I remember as a young cook that salads like this were a part of every pot luck get together I went to and as a result ended up on my table too. It’s been a few years but I’m salivating at the thought of that old fashioned goodness! Nice trip down memory lane Merry Jennifer!

I love it!!! My mother used to make a very similar salad although it wasn’t nearly that fluffy!! She would make it in a pyrex dish and cut it into triangles (to resemble a christmas tree) with a maraschino cherry at the top and an olive at the bottom for the trunk!!

I am so glad you posted this. I haven’t thought of that salad in years and now I want to go and dig up the recipe!!

I have an orange jello salad that is very similar and it is Erica’s favorite. It has orange jello, Cool Whip, cottage cheese, mandarin oranges, and crushed pineapple. She will definitely have to try the green salad at Christmas and so will I!

Hahahaha, okay now I’m back at familiar. We eat this stuff. And if you had askeme before finding this post I’d of lied and said I don’t know what you’re talking about. We only eay it twice a year too, but over processed and inorganic or not, it’s good stuff!!!

I just made this for my daughter to take to her first pot luck dinner as an adult.
Making it with her brought back sweet memories of Holiday dinners when she was a child. The children always fought over the cherries and now all of those children are grown up and at this party now. I wonder if there will be trouble at the buffet table?!

Thank you so much for posting this. I lost my mom last year and this was one of my favorite recipes she made. I wanted to make it for a potluck recently, even though I’d never made it myself. I found her recipe, but it was just a list of ingredients on an index card with the instructions “let set three hours in refrigerator”. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do. I probably would have mixed everything together without dissolving the jello first, had I not found this post

I too, try to cook fresh organic ingredients whenever possible but I also agree, there is no substitute for the years and years of memories we have with certain foods. Now that she is gone, I plan on making my mom’s rotation of different jello salads through the seasons. I know it isn’t popular anymore to bring jello salad, but in my experience, everyone usually likes it!! Cheers to all for carrying on this tradition.

I appreciate this post and I’m happy I figured out to dissolve the jello first! Thank you again, and best wishes to everyone.

Wow, if I hadn’t read your About section, I would have sworn you were from Utah. I’m a Canadian now living in Utah, and Utah is the king of these kinds of salads. One I can think of (that I won’t go near, even with a 5-foot pole) comprises mayo, sweet relish, shrimp, olives, etc. It terrifies me, but my husband’s family gobbles it up.

We’ve been making this in my family for years and years. We make it exactly the same, but we add Mandarin oranges to it. I can’t think of eating it without them. It’s magical. It’s rare to find people who know about it, and who actually want to try it because they’re so grossed out by cottage cheese. BUT it’s sooooo gooooood.